Preview of 4Q profit on Facebook

Borrowing the concept from competitor Snap, who introduced Stories in 2013, Facebook released its competitive version three years later. Facebook started by adding stories to Instagram and has since added them to its main application, Messenger and WhatsApp. Stories can focus on a photo of something your cousin sees on the street, or on a selfie video of a friend with a puppy's animated ears.

Despite the fact that this feature is especially popular on Instagram, it is unclear how popular it is in other Facebook applications. Zuckerberg warned that the transition from news feeds to news can be slow, telling analysts that “from a business point of view, news feeds will contribute to much of our growth over the next few years, at least until the newsletters more powerful factor. "

Maria Ripps, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, said that investors need to find out if Stories are “add-ons to the main news feed” or if they take money from the main product.

“Any color around this will be the most important issue this quarter,” said Ripps. Canaccord has a “buy” rating on Facebook and a price of $ 180.

Currently, Facebook continues to attract advertisers who cannot reach the audience that the social network provides elsewhere.

"Facebook can be intrusive and sell your stuff," says Kim Forrest, who manages money at Fort Pitt Capital Group, which owns about 2,300 Facebook shares. "But apparently, it works for advertisers."

CLOCK: Here's how to find out which applications have access to your data on Facebook — and disable it.